Mary Jane Curran, 73

August 26, 2003

Through her own illnesses, Mary Jane McCarthy Curran saw the need to help others in pain. Diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1965, Mrs. Curran later worked to establish organ transplant centers in South America. Mrs. Curran, 73, of Lake Forest died Friday, Aug. 22, in Lake Forest Hospital of kidney failure. She was on a transplant waiting list for years and knew well the need for organ donations, though she never complained of her illness, said her husband, Mark. "She'd say, `Don't dwell on it. Life has some pain and suffering but you move on,'" her husband said. Mrs. Curran and her husband established the Intercontinental Transplant Center Foundation of Curitiba, Brazil, in 1999 in honor of a doctor who helped her through a bout with cancer. The foundation funds transplant research and aims to increase the number of transplant clinics in South America, her husband said. Mrs. Curran was perpetually upbeat, said her daughter, Mary Jane. She saw even a trip home from the grocery as an opportunity to explore. "She was just fun. She'd say, `Let's see what's in this neighborhood,' and you'd get home hours later," her daughter said. Mrs. Curran, who grew up on the South Side, was the daughter of Justin T. McCarthy, a former insurance commissioner of Illinois. She graduated from Trinity College in Washington in 1952 and worked in advertising with McCann-Erickson in Chicago. She was assistant to the president of Papert Koenig Lois in New York and while there helped work on Robert Kennedy's campaign for U.S. Senate in 1964, her husband said. She was an active volunteer who taught art in North Chicago public schools and worked with mentally disabled adults at Lambs Farm. Besides her husband and daughter, survivors include three sons, Mark, Anthony and Nicholas; a brother, Thomas J. McCarthy; a sister, Ann McCarthy Vanden Bosch; and seven grandchildren. Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Tuesday in St. Mary Catholic Church, 175 E. Illinois Rd., Lake Forest.